No doubt it'll look for certain components in a genuine Apple system and refuse to run if they're missing. And even if/when someone does crack it to run on vanilla x86 PCs, come the next patch update it's possible that Apple will prevent such cracks from working. So it'll be very fiddly to run OS X on non-Mac boxes -- for real work a proper Mac will be pretty much essential.

Look at it this way... one of the reasons that OS X is so slick is that it runs on a limited set of hardware that Apple can thoroughly test, support and optimise it for. I'll bet it would be no better (and probably worse) than Linux at running on the average home-built box of bits.
It would be like putting the seats, steering wheel & dashboard from a Lexus into an old Toyota Corolla & expecting it to drive like the Lexus.

Nigel wrote:Look at it this way... one of the reasons that OS X is so slick is that it runs on a limited set of hardware that Apple can thoroughly test, support and optimise it for. I'll bet it would be no better (and probably worse) than Linux at running on the average home-built box of bits.It would be like putting the seats, steering wheel & dashboard from a Lexus into an old Toyota Corolla & expecting it to drive like the Lexus.

to refine that metaphor a bit:

I could take the engine from a 405 T16 and put it in a 405 1.9D, as they're both based on the same thing.

Should I therefore be able to get the Apple GUI running on BSD (solving the hardware issue?) on x86?

Would it be easier to take something like Bochs and add modules to emulate the Apple/x86 hardware?

I have been working in a film studio for the past few weeks and I am outnumbered more than 20 to 1 by Apple users.

After a brief discussion about file formats, we had a chat about computers in general and I chipped in with my miniscule bit of knowledge about OSX, Darwin etc.

I was greeted by a room full of dour faces and politely told that, if I looked into it a bit more carefully, I would probably find that in fact it was the other way round and that Unix & Linux must be based on an earlier version of the Apple OS.

emyr42 wrote:I could take the engine from a 405 T16 and put it in a 405 1.9D, as they're both based on the same thing.

You could, but it wouldn't drive the same because you wouldn't have the T16's suspension, gearbox, brakes etc.
So OS X on the non-Apple x86 box might do some of the things a genuine Apple would, but not all of them properly, and would likely give you problems when you needed it most... and you don't dare tell your insurance company

Last edited by Nigel on Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

what I don't get about apples move to intel is that the main reason given *that I'm aware of* was because IBM wouldn't supply them with ppc chips affordably at the volumes they were buying. But as someone else, somewhere else pointed out, the new Cell has a ppc as it's core. Wouldn't apple have been better served by jumping on that bandwagon? It would have been able to run most mac software nativley, the whole arcitechture of the Cell makes it ideal for all the things macs are supposed to be great at any way: video, rendering, audio, etc.... And it's not so far off in the future, people are already selling servers based around these chips.

The cell is, I believe, PPC architecture optimised for games rather than general-purpose computing. So it should be great in the Xbox 360 or PS3, but not so good in a Mac.
Another major reason for Apple to switch is the heat generated by the latest PPC processors... they never did get the G5 into a notebook, and there were tales of top-end iMacs frying capacitors on their motherboards. The Intel mobile chipsets apparently run much cooler for the equivalent processing power.

pins wrote:what I don't get about apples move to intel is that the main reason given *that I'm aware of* was because IBM wouldn't supply them with ppc chips affordably at the volumes they were buying.

There was allways short supply of ppc chips when Apple was releasing new top models. Thereby Apple sufferded some sales due to this.
I have neverd heard of this being a problem with Intel cpus
IBM would supply Apple but they couldn´t. At least that is Apple and Mac buyers experience.

If i was Steve Jobs i would do the same ting.
Now Apple can buy their chips from Intel or even AMD if they want to without too much transition costs.
Anyway, unlike Win$, Mac Os X is based on kernels written pretty much indepndently of cpu type, they CAN do a cpu switch and they have the experience to do it (read: 68k to ppc, a seamless transition).

Blåtann wrote:Anyway, unlike Win$, Mac Os X is based on kernels written pretty much indepndently of cpu type, they CAN do a cpu switch and they have the experience to do it (read: 68k to ppc, a seamless transition).

They do a cpu transition because they can.

You do realise that software can be compiled to a specific architecture. If Binary Mac program A is compiled with optimisation for PPC its very unlikely to run on an x86 machine. This is why source code is so great, compile to whatever architecture you like.

As for the Cell processor. Yes its optimised for Games but given the similarity in the sort of work high end games do in comparison to the traditional areas Macs tend to focus on (like high end graphics and sound) is there a real problem. The only problem I can see is potential articles ridiculing the Mac for using a 'gaming' processor.

Windows is not all M$, it contains lots of third party licensed bits and pieces as a part of their pactchwork and those have to work together.
It is not a few chunks of source code to be compiled to the next cpu.
Windows XP still even contains some 16bit Win 3.x and Dos code.

That makes it a LOT of expensive work to do the same switch as Apple.
But then the problems that M$ may have is not related to cpu.

Besides, i think the allways annoying short supply of new processors when introducing a new model was the main reason.

That short supply happened to the 601 (first ppc), 604, G3, G4 and the G5. Thereby reducing new Macs sold by introduction and producing an impatient Apple and customers.